
Glass 1 . J _ 



<"3 



Bonk 



Erroneous Views 
of our Life 




By 

Carl N. Conrad, Ph. D., S. T. D. 

Pastor of 

Lutheran Concordia Church 

Rochester, N. Y. 



.CI/4 



By tv**** BT 
The mite House 



"To the law and to the testimony, if they 
speak not according to this word, it is because there 
is no light in them." 

—Isaiah viiL, 20. 



PREFACE 




N offering in a printed 
form this lecture on 
Erroneous Views of our 
Life, which has been 
delivered in various 
churches of our State, I conform to 
the request of many who have heard 
it, and especially to the wishes of mem- 
bers of my own congregation. 

C. N. Conrad. 



Rochester, N. Y. 
July i, 1906. 



Erroneous Views 
of Our Life 

u T T E AVEN lieth around us in our in- 
fancy!" is the beautiful language 
of the poet. But, here we are always in 
our infancy, and these are the elements 
which make a heaven around us, even amid 
the shadows of time, and which draw music, 
as from hidden harps, over the darkest and 
loneliest solitudes of life. 

We cannot accept the saying of the poet : 
"the light which led astray was light from 
heaven !" No light from heaven ever led 
any man astray; "the wisdom that is from 
above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, 
and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and 



good fruits, without partiality, and without 
hypocrisy." 

That, surely, is not light which leadeth 
astray, and whatever light does so, proves 
itself, by the very fact, to belong to the wis- 
dom which is not from above, but from 
beneath, even hell itself. 

The unity of our life, too, is sustained by 
these scripture representations. It is no 
longer a confused and meaningless thing, 
giving rise to the question, "Wherefore 
hast Thou made all men in vain?" 

Vain, indeed, would be the eye and wings 
to the eagle, if he were never to rise above 
the slimy things of the earth ; and vain 
would be that eye of reason in man, and 
whose wings of intelligence, imagination 
and faith, by which he can "look before and 
after," can reconnoitre the universe, and 
sustain himself in the contemplation of the 



infinite, if sense is to be his world, and 
matter his god, and the sepulchre his goal. 
To use the language of a living writer, 
"every man's life is a plan of God, which 
he is to take up and work out to its utter- 
most possibilities/' He may not be able 
to prearrange the circumstances, but, by 
the help of our Heavenly Father, he may 
and will conquer them, and subdue them to 
much good. No two ships have precisely 
the same path, and are struck, at the same 
angle, by precisely the same winds, but the 
helmsman accomodates himself to this, 
and makes the most of the winds which the 
Supreme Ruler is pleased to send. One 
thing is certain, that the main business of 
every human soul is to find its right place 
in the world, and, in view of the great 
future, to work its right way through it. 
That way, indeed, lies often in the dark. 



Like one who is treading some mountain- 
pass, and striving to reach some mountain- 
height, we are always encountering some 
perplexing obstruction, and always sup- 
posing that when that is surmounted, the 
way will be clear and the pinnacle appar- 
ent. 

We need not complain of our ignorance 
of the future ; for sufficient is revealed for 
all practical purposes. Its minor incidents 
may be wrapped in obscurity, but its final 
issues all may know, — they are left with 
ourselves, and we are working them out 
at every moment, according to the saying 
of St. Paul, "whatsoever a man soweth,. 
that shall he also reap." It has appeared to 
me that our view of the subject would be 
complete, without a cursory glance of some 
of those erroneous views of false theories 
which abound in the world, and which, both 



in their nature and tendency, stand out in 
such unfavorable contrast with those which 
are given in God's Word. There is much 
wrong living in the world which does not 
proceed from any recognized theory — not 
that there is not some theory at bottom — 
some basement principle of which the man- 
ner of life is the natural outgrowth. But, 
apart from this, there are various erroneous 
modes of life which have assumed a definite, 
theoretical shape, and which men have not 
only adopted in practice, but are ever ready 
to plead for as philosophically true. 

At some of these let us now look! 

There is the Epicurean or Pleasure 
theory. This derives its name from a cele- 
brated philosopher of Greece, and the fact 
that it still exists as a theory, proves that 
it has struck its roots very deeply into some 
part of our nature. Contrary to what we 



might have expected, the philosopher 
referred to was, humanly speaking, a virtu- 
ous man. For while his theory was this, 
that pleasure was the foundation of virtue, 
and its ultimate reason and test, he, at the 
same time, denied that there was any pleas- 
ure in vice, and he endeavored to show his 
sincerity in this by living a careful and 
moderate life. We know that this is not 
the meaning which is attached to Epicur- 
eanism now. We apply it to a life of sen- 
sual indulgence, that is to say, to the life 
of those who may hold, indeed, that pleas- 
ure is virtue; but who are very far from 
holding, with Epicurus, that virtue is pleas- 
ure. Hence there are some who maintain 
that it is not just to Epicurus to apply his 
name to such a low and sensual theory of 
life, that it is a misrepresentation of his 
views, and that it gives an entirely false 



impression of the man. We are not very 
sure of this, however. It is very seldom 
that traditional phraseology is essentially 
wrong, and we do not think that it is so 
here. It may, possibly, give a wrong im- 
pression of the man, since it has associated 
the name of one who was personally tem- 
perate, with a life of animal indulgence and 
sensual gratification. But we question the 
right to complain of this, since it is just the 
price which he has had to pay for pro- 
pounding a theory of life which was not 
only false, but essentially low, yea, mean. 
For what did he do? He shifted the 
ground and reason of virtue from the 
nature and will of the Creator to the will 
or pleasure of the creature. And the 
moment he did this, the foundations were 
all out of course. The application of the 
theory was simply a matter of taste. He 
13 



might apply it in an elevated way, and say 
that, while pleasure was the foundation of 
virtue, virtue was, at the same time, the 
only pleasure. In making pleasure the 
rule of life, he must allow every man to 
judge for himself as to what pleasure is. 
One may place it in virtue, another may 
place it in vice. One may find it in the 
sphere of the intellect, another may find it 
in the sphere of the senses. The disciples 
of Epicurus were by no means careful to 
follow their master further than suited their 
tastes, they accepted his theory, but they 
refused his application. This opened the 
flood gates for every vice. The creed of 
the Epicurean of the present day is : "Dum 
vivimus, vivamus," whilst we live, let us 
live. "Let us eat and drink, and be merry, 
for to-morrow we die." Now, let us see 
how this Epicurean creed narrows down 

14 



our life to a very point. It takes all soul 
out of it. For the soul is its enemy, and 
a regard for its interests would be the very 
death of such a life. The soul goeth 
upward, God is its portion and heaven its 
home. But this is a down-going life, where 
our Heavenly Father is forgotten, and 
heaven is despised. It is a life which has 
its stronghold simply in the flesh, and it 
goes outward only to those objects which 
minister to that. The whole life of the man 
is a gratification of those fleshly lusts that 
war against his soul. But it takes all 
heart out of our life. The sensual man is 
of necessity selfish. He is often said to be 
"his own worst enemy. ,, No doubt he is, 
but he is every body's enemy as well as his 
own. Wife and children, friends and 
neighbors — all must yield to the master — 
passion, over and over again, to selfish 
15 



pleasure. He is an enemy of society, the 
propagator and patron, yea, pattern of evil. 
But it also takes the intellect out of our 
life. For its own sake, at least, there is 
no recognition of it. It may be employed 
as an instrument to devise new forms of 
pleasure, and new modes of carrying them 
into effect, but nothing more. It is the 
minister of sense, the convenient purveyor 
for its appetites, the demon in the herd of 
swine, impelling us down the steep of 
ignominious concession, into the foul sea of 
sensuality and indulgence. Goethe, the 
German poet, is a striking example of a 
man devoting his life to seeking his own 
culture with all the energy of commanding 
genius, but Goethe was an Hedonist, an 
Epicurean. Great as are the works of his 
genius, he missed that which is of highest 
worth, and the light of his intellect reveals 

16 



more clearly his moral deficiencies. Intent 
on personal culture and enjoyment only, 
he took little interest in the great political 
movements of his time, which were chang- 
ing the destiny of Europe and America and 
affecting all the interests of humanity. 
In Napoleon's invasion he fawned on 
the conqueror of his people. Unlike 
Fichte, the philosopher, who, as the enemy 
approached, dismissed his class with the 
inspiring words : "Gentlemen, we shall 
resume these lectures in a free country." 
The track of his life was strewn with 
crushed and cast off loves, like orange peels 
thrown away after he had sucked out all 
the sweetness. Great and lustrous like an 
iceberg, floating deep and towering high, 
moving majestic with the strength and 
swell of the ocean, effulgent in the sun- 
shine, a mountain of light, but also a moun- 
17 



tain of ice. Plainly, he never attained the 
true good. This estimate of himself, he, 
himself pronounced when in his old age he 
said: "I have ever been esteemed one of 
fortune's favorites ; nor can I complain of 
the course my life has taken. Yet, truly, 
there has been nothing but toil and care; 
and now in my 75th year I may say that I 
have never had four weeks of genuine pleas- 
ure. The stone was ever to be rolled 
anew. My annals will testify to the truth 
of what I now say." 

These are the words of Goethe, an Epic- 
unrean, an Hedonist. Let us contract this 
with St. Paul's review of his life of self- 
sacrificing love. "I am now ready to be 
offered and the time of my departure is at 
hand: I have fought the good fight; I 
have finished the course ; I have kept the 
faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a 

18 



crown of righteousness, which the Lord, 
the righteous judge wall give me at that 
day." 

I pass now to another erroneous view of 
our life directly the opposite, and which, 
although not quite so mean, is certainly 
false, and undeniably opposed to the teach- 
ing of Holy Writ. That is: 

The Ascetic Theory. The first thing 
that strikes us here is that the former theory 
robbed life of the future, this one robs it 
of the present. The one makes the body 
everything, the other makes it nothing. But 
both body and soul are the workmanship 
of God, and neither can be placed under the 
ban without violence and sin. And yet 
what are the facts? According to this 
theory the whole glory of life consists in 
the willful and purposeless depression of 
the body. Ingenuity has been racked for 

T9 



the invention of tortures, and nature has 
been outraged in frantic attempts to extin- 
guish all its sensibilities. Such individuals 
have fled from society, they have rushed to 
the cloister, they have buried themselves in 
deep woods, they have burrowed with the 
wild beasts in dens and holes of the earth, 
they have lacerated and macerated their 
bodies, they have stood in one posture till 
their sinews were shrunk, they have held 
out their arms till they could not draw them 
back, they have undertaken pilgrimages to 
the ends of the world, everything in short 
of the nature of material or physical endur- 
ance, and all in the way of propitiating that 
Being who says: "Go and learn what 
this meaneth, I will have mercy and not 
sacrifice." 

This is, in my estimation, an entirely 
false view of our life. We do not find it 



prescribed. The Deity that made us does not 
require it. He does require self denial and 
suffering, even unto death, in the path of 
duty however. But not out of that path, 
not for his own sake. The Lord, our 
Heavenly Father, must prescribe it, not w T e 
ourselves, and it is enough that we, His 
children comply when He prescribes it. 
Anything beyond that is worse than idle, 
yea, it is presumptuous and sinful. It 
springs from self-righteousness, and is 
deeply rooted in spiritual pride. For what 
is it after all but the purchase money of 
heaven. It is simply the old penance-sys- 
tem of religion by which so much suffer- 
ing was supposed to cancel so much sin. 
It stands in the room of our Saviour, and 
that is sufficient to condemn it, since we are 
perfectly certain that the meritorious work 
of the Saviour needs no such buttress, and 



that "it is not by works of righteousness" 
we have done ; but according to His mercy 
He saves us, by regeneration, the renewing 
of the Holy Spirit, which he sheds on us 
abundantly through Jesus Christ our 
Lord. It is true that our own Luther 
obtained the first glimpses of truth 
while immured in his convent at Erfurt. 
But, what was even Dr. Martin Luther 
until such time as, having emerged 
from his convent, he proceeded to carry 
his just principles into practical effect? 
He oscillated, we are told, not a little 
between the new and the old, and it was 
only as he entered into the heart of his 
enterprise that his strength came, his char- 
acter grew and towered in its majesty over 
every obstruction, his trust, not in himself, 
but in his God, guiding him forward to 
action, and every successive action still 
deepening this trust in his God. 



There is nothing which gives a man such 
power for anything as just doing it, "he 
is, however, only made great through dif- 
ficulties. " Our views may be correct, and 
our principles sound, but if we allow them 
to lie dormant in our bosoms, they will 
give little elevation, and still less strength 
to the character. The benefactors of the 
world, the true spiritual heroes of all times, 
have grown up together with their enter- 
prises, and in the midst of their labors, and 
by means of their labors, have become 
mighty men, and men of renown. The 
grand thing to be considered is that man 
is to fulfil the great end of his being, not 
by the suppression of his faculties, but by 
their proper cultivation ; not by the extinct- 
ion of any part of his nature, sensational, 
intellectual or spiritual, as it were, but by 

the control of the whole, in subservancy 

23 






to the glory of God and the good of man, 
and according to the principles laid down 
in His blessed word. Away with Asceti- 
cism, this theory to my mind is erroneous 
and false, yea, it is injurious to our very 
souls ! 

I now proceed to another view of our 
life, still more fantastic than either of the 
two preceding, but not less false in its 
nature, and not less mischievous in its 
effects. I refer to: 

The Pantheistic Theory. The Pantheistic 
theory is not without eminent names for its 
support, and numerous partisans, both in 
Europe and America. Popularly speaking, 
this theory consists in the denial of a per- 
sonal God, and in maintaining, on the con- 
trary, that there is some subtle essence 
underlying and pervading our universe, and 

indeed constituting the universe, and that 

24 



this is God. It is not a person, it is not 
anything that we can conceive of as exist- 
ing apart from the universe, but only a 
certain abyss of being which is supposed to 
underlie, and give unity to the whole. 
Now, it is not to be expected that I should 
go into any discussion of this as a philo- 
sophical, or metaphysical theory at this 
time. Dr. McCosh in an admirable work 
entitled : "Intuitions of the mind," classifies 
and elucidates Pantheism very intelligently. 
I glance at the subject simply to put young 
men and young women on their guard 
against its insidious influence, for it is 
generally dressed up in a manner which 
makes it very bewildering, if not positively 
attractive to the ardent temperament of 
youth. I shall merely advert to some of 
its more obvious practical effects. 

Pantheism destroys all individual 
25 



responsibility in man. We formally en- 
deavored to show you that there is noth- 
ing on which the Scripture in its manifold 
representations of life, more frequently 
and more emphatically insists, than this, 
that to his own master everyone stands or 
falls ; that everyone must prove, or bring to 
test, his own work, since, "every man must 
bear his own burden." 

But, according to the theory of Panthe- 
ism, this is absurd ; for God is the universe, 
and the universe is God; its great soul is 
one and indivisible ; but what we call 
individual life is not individual but only a 
particular manifestation of the parent es- 
sence, projected for a time into the region 
of the actual, or rather the phenominal, but 
still a part of that parent essence, and des- 
tined to be absorbed into it, as a rain-drop 

into the ocean. Alas ! much of our secular 
26 



poetry of the present day, very often, is of 
this very nature. Here, then, is the axe 
at once laid at the root of all that is dis- 
tinctive in man. His individual will, his 
individual importance and his individual 
responsibility. All are gone at a stroke, 
and we suddenly find ourselves nothing in 
the world, nothing more at least than a ship, 
or a tree, or a clod of the valley. Well 
might the late Dr. James Robertson of Glas- 
gow, when commenting on Pantheism, in 
an able book which he published shortly 
before his death say : "If this be so, we may 
suffer our children to walk in any way in 
which they decline to go. Henceforth, 
'evil, be thou my good/ Let vice be cul- 
tivated; crime patronized, and instead of 
regarding with mingled pity and horror, 
the ravings of blasphemy, the shouts of 

drunkenness, the wailings of remorse, that 

27 






come up from the reeking and bloody dens 
of imbruted humanity, let us hail them as so 
many excelsiors, uttered by magnanimous 
spirits struggling after perfection, as the 
jubilant shouts of a divine nature climbing 
pinnacle after pinnacle of bliss. " 

Another false view of our life is that 
which depreciates virtue and extenuates 
vice, by ascribing too much importance to: 

Circumstances. Now, in looking at this 
theory, it were foolish to deny that circum- 
stances have a very material influence upon 
us. It is impossible to prevent this. They 
must have a certain modifying effect upon 
us. Hence the different types of character 
which are visible in different nations and 
in different classes of the same nation and 
in different families of the same class. 
And hence the reason why we pity some 

more than others, and we should all en- 

28 



deavor, as a matter of sacred duty, to place 
ourselves in circumstances most favorable 
to a religious life. 

Thus far, my friends, we are perfectly 
willing to go. But then there are individ- 
uals who would go a great deal farther, and 
would impute everything whatever to cir- 
cumstances. They virtually tell us that 
they may have done wrong at such and such 
a time, but then they were so circumstanced 
that they could not have done otherwise. 
Now this is a view, to my mind, of our life 
which is evidently mischievous and errone- 
ous. In the first place, it goes very far 
towards making God the author of sin, 
since it makes sin a necessity, and a neces- 
sity of that providence which is under the 
control and direction of God. It is, in 
short, just a renewal of the old accusation. 

"The woman whom thou didst give me to 

29 



be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I 
did eat." God never placed any man under 
the necessity of sinning, and it is mean as 
well as impious to endeavor, in this way, to 
transfer our guilt from ourselves to Him. 
How often are we ourselves responsible 
even for the very circumstances which we 
make our excuse. How often are these of 
our own creating ; how often do we go into 
temptation which we might have avoided; 
how often do we foster habits which ulti- 
mately form a net-work of circumstances 
around us, from which we find it all but 
impossible to escape. 

How often, for example, do we find a 
man launching out into an extravagant 
manner of living that he may seem to com- 
pete with some richer neighbor. This style 
of thing, (having once begun it) he must 
keep up. It will not do to let down the 
30 



prestige of his family ; and the consequence 
is, that he betakes himself to one doubtful 
practice after another until he ends in public 
disgrace and ruin. Such an one may talk 
of himself as the victim of circumstances, 
but the circumstances, even in so far as 
they did precipitate his fall, were entirely 
of his own creating; and although it were 
otherwise, there is no such tyranny in cir- 
cumstance as to make sin a necessity. They 
may bring out character, but they do not 
force it; and we must beware of accepting 
any such view of our life as tends either to 
extinguish our own responsibility or to cast 
the blame of our conduct on God. "He 
will be clear when he speaketh." "Let God 
be true and every man a liar." "Shall not 
the judge of all the earth do right ?" Be 
determined to conquer circumstances should 
temptation arise; when tempted to evil, 



3* 



withhold your consent, and all is well. It 
is perfectly possible to do so; neither angel 
nor devil can compel you to sin. If Noah 
could stand firm alone in a world of sin- 
ners, much more may you, through Jesus, 
in the comparatively favorable circum- 
stances in which you are placed. If cir- 
cumstances could not conquer him, surely 
there is no reason in the universe why they 
should conquer you. 

I beseech you, my friends, to cast aside 
al those false views of our life and return 
to the simple and solemn teaching of the 
Bible. That is an old book, and with some, 
it has become very fashionable of late, to 
assail it, and talk and write of it lightly. 
They are speudo-theorists, false prophets 
in the land of our God. Holy Writ is the 
only book we have yet seen that answers our 
purpose, it is in fact, a remarkable book, 
32 



the only book that carries the impress and 
superscription of God; the only book, we 
maintain, which speaks with authority to 
the human soul, and which sheds a satis- 
factory light over the mystery of our being. 
That good book assures us that our life, 
yea, that every man's life is a sacred treas- 
ure, an awful responsibility, which is to 
make him, or mar him forever. 

There is much truth in the saying of John 
Picus, Prince of Mirandola : "Philosophy 
seeks the truth, theology finds it, religion 
posseses it." But healthy religion does 
not want to possess the truth blindly; it 
also wants to understand and comprehend 
what it possesses. The impulse of reli- 
gion is both to produce faith and know- 
ledge, the so called Pistis and Gnosis. 

True philosophy, true theology and true 
religion have as their basis and foundation, 



33 



God's Holy Word only. There are those 
who imagine that denying the Scriptures 
is a mark of profound wisdom and learning. 
He who openly attacks the Bible is very 
often applauded as a great hero. However, 
it is neither wisdom, nor heroism that 
moves men to despise or even publically 
ridicule God's Holy Word; only profound 
ignorance and deep spiritual blindness can 
lead to such things, for it is the fool that 
presses the matter a little farther and says 
in his heart: "There is no God." Psalm 
14, 1. "About 12,000 children are said to 
attend infidel Sunday-schools in Chicago. 
The following is a specimen of what these 
innocent children are taught: God is only 
a term denoting a supernatural being which 
has been invented to suit the fancy of men. 
God has never revealed Himself; there is 
no God. Man has no soul ; the soul is 

34 



simply a figment of the Church. Prayer is 
not necessary and only a waste of time." 
How deplorable, how sad! No wonder, 
anarchism is at times rampant in the god- 
less city of Chicago. In which city also 
"it is said are more than 10,000 sun wor- 
shipers." God's word only can enlighten 
a misguided people. 

Editors, writers, and statesmen duly 
appreciate the Bible's literary value, and 
keep it constantly at hand. A Western 
editor, Mr. Walter Williams, in stating 
what he thought were the best dozen books 
for editors, is reported by Newspaperdom 
as saying: "The Bible comes first, in the 
list I have made, as it should come first in 
all our libraries, small or great. In the 
many volumed catalogue of the British 
Museum, with its thousands of books, the 
first on the list is the Bible. Catalogues 

35 



made this arrangement, not from senti- 
mental reasons alone, but because there is 
no book of such importance in human litera- 
ture, whatever we may think of the faith 
taught by this Queen of books, whatever 
we may believe as to its inspiration, no one 
can be a well educated man, no one can 
attain the highest usefulness as an editor 
who is unfamiliar with the Scriptures. 
Because it is in itself a library. " 

A few scientific men are unbelievers, 
infidels, agnostics. They have never been 
converted ; have never been taught of God ; 
they have in most cases lacked religious 
education, not understanding "the father- 
hood of God, and the brotherhood of man," 
and know little or nothing of the history of 
the church, or rather the grounds on which 
a true Christian's faith reposes. Hence 
ignorant and unlearned skeptics, who know 
36 



nothing whatever of science, claim that all 
scientific men are atheistic, or agnostic, 
and feel no interest in religious matters. 
This claim is founded in ignorance and 
urged with impudence. The great mass 
of scientific men, I maintain, acknowledge 
and revere God. If you please, where are 
the infidel astronomers? Not Capernicus, 
not Kepler, not Newton, not Hershel, not 
Brewster, not Mitchel, not Sechi, — these 
men believed in God. Where are the infidel 
geologists? Not Lyell, not Buckland, not 
Dana, not Hitchcock, not Hugh Miller, not 
Geikei, not Dawson, — these men believed 
in God. Where are the infidel orators? 
Not Patrick Henry, not Gough, not Web- 
ster, not Spurgeon, not Henry Ward 
Beecher, not Darbin, not Milburn, not 
Stockton, not Dr. Joseph Seiss, not Presi- 
dent Theodore Roosevelt. Where are the 

37 



great infidel poets? Not Chaucer, not 
Milton, not Shakespeare, not Byron, not 
Lowell, not Longfellow, not Tennyson, not 
Holmes, not Watts, not Wesley, not David. 
Where are the great infidel scientists? Not 
Boyle, not Priestley, not Faraday, not Lord 
Kelvin, not Clark-Maxwell, — these men 
believed in God, our Heavenly Father, and 
looked to Him. Where are the great infi- 
del inventors? Not Arkwright, not Steph- 
enson, not Watt, not Davy, not Whitney, 
not Franklin, not Morse, not Edison. It 
is not necessary to speak of Gladstone's 
faith, of the ringing triumph in the writ- 
ings of Henry George, the social teacher, 
or of Abraham Lincoln, who prayed with 
Beecher during the dark days of the Civil 
War, or of Gordan, who died in faith in 
Khartorum or Robert Livingstone,the great 
naturalist and missionary, who died in 



Central Africa. The infidels at the present 
time of marked ability and eminence are so 
few that a child can write them, and a man 
can number them on his fingers. One of 
the most eminent scientific men of this or 
any age was Prof. Louis Agassiz. When 
the summer school was opened at Perikise, 
in Buzzards Bay, July 8, 1873, Agassiz had 
arranged no program or exercises, trusting 
to the interest of the occasion to suggest 
what might best be said or done. But as he 
looked upon his pupils, gathered there to 
study nature with him, by an impulse as 
natural as it was unpremeditated, he called 
upon them to join in silently asking God's 
blessing on their work together. 

God's word is the Christian's weapon in 
life's battle against the world, the flesh and 
the Devil, as well as all false theories of 
our life, and lead us ever on to victory. 

39 



When would-be wise men are running to 
and fro in the land, denouncing the good 
Book, as a book of fables, and faith in it 
as foolishness, the truly wise, the brightest 
minds the word produces, reverence not 
only God, as we have heard, but also the 
Scriptures and ever delight in being known 
as fervent admirers of that ever sacred 
work. A few citations, my friends, from 
the Golden Cencer will show what tributes 
of praise the old Bible has received from 
some of the noblest and most cultured of 
men. 

"There are no songs," says Milton, "com- 
parable to the songs of Zion, no orations 
equal to those of the prophets, and no 
politics like those which the Scriptures 
teach." "The pure and noble, the grace- 
ful and dignified simplicity of language," 

says Pope, "is nowhere in such perfection 
40 



as in the Scriptures. The whole book of 
Job, with regard both to sublimity of 
thought and morality, exceeds, beyond all 
comparison, the most noble parts of 
Homer. ,, 

"Intense study of the Bible will keep any 
one from being vulgar in point of style/' 
says Boyle, "not as an arsenal to be resorted 
to only for arms and weapons, but as a 
matchless temple, where I delight to con- 
template the beauty, the symmetry, and the 
magnificence of the structure, and to 
increase my awe and excite my devotion to 
the Deity there preached and adored." 
"There never was found, in any age of the 
world," says Bacon, "either religion or law 
that did so highly exalt the public good as 
the Bible." "It is the window in the prison 
of hope," says Dwight, "through which we 
look into eternity." "How admirable and 
41 



beautiful," says Racine, "is the simplicity 
of the Evangelists ! They never speak 
injuriously of the enemies of Jesus Christ, 
of His judges, nor of His executioners. 
They speak the true facts without a single 
reflection. They comment neither on their 
Master's mildness, nor on His constancy in 
the hour of His ignominious death, which 
they thus describe: "And they crucified 
Jesus." "Men cannot be well educated 
without the Bible," says Dr. Nott. "It 
ought, therefore, to hold a chief place in 
every situation of learning throughout 
Christendom." 

"I am of the opinion," says Sir Wm. 
Jones, "that the Bible contains more pure 
morality, more important history, and 
finer strains of poetry and eloquence than 
can be collected from all other books, in 
whatever age or language they have been 
written." 

42 



"I will answer for it," says Romaine, "the 
longer you read the Bible, the more you will 
like it; it will grow sweeter and sweeter; 
and the more you will get into the spirit 
of it, the more you will get into the spirit 
of Christ." 

"I find more sure marks of the authenti- 
city of the Bible," says Sir Isaac Newton, 
"than in any profane, i. d. secular history 
whatsoever." 

Newton, was as a youth a decided unbe- 
liever, but in later years he investigated 
the witnesses of Holy Scripture carefully 
and became as decided a Christian. When 
the similarly famous astronomer, Dr. Ed- 
mund Halley, expressed his unbelief before 
him, Newton said to him: "Dr. Halley, I 
always like to hear you, when you talk on 
astronomy, mathematics and such things, 
for these you have studied and understand. 

43 



But you should not speak on the Bible, for 
you do not understand it, because you have 
not carefully investigated it. I have exam- 
ined it, and am certain that you know noth- 
ing of the matter. ,, This admonition suits 
to most skeptics and unbelievers of to-day. 
Yea, advocates of the so called higher criti- 
cism. They simply speak of sacred things 
without a thorough prayerful investigation, 
they write and speak of things of which 
they know nothing. And a little learning 
is, at times, a very dangerous thing. 

To take one other all-embracing sphere 
of human intellect, the sphere of science, 
in that region, too, the most eminent souls 
— men like Capernicus, Leibnitz, Descartes, 
Haller, Pascal, Ray, Hershel, Faraday, and 
many others — not losing sight of the Crea- 
tor in the multitudinous marvels of His 
creatures, have looked not only to the Bible ; 

44 



but also to Christ as their Lord and their 
God. "A little philosophy/' as Bacon 
said, "inclineth a man's mind to Atheism, 
but depth of philosophy bringeth men's 
minds about to religion." Among the 
"pillars" of Science two names stand su- 
preme — Kepler and Newton whose names 
we have already mentioned. Kepler wrote 
of Christ with the profoundest reverence. 
The first mortal eyes which ever observed 
the transit of Venus were those of Jere- 
miah Harrocks, an humble country curate. 
He hurried to his telescope in the intervals 
between three Sunday services, and though 
his observation was of such consummate 
astronomical importance, he recorded in his 
diary that he broke off his work to go to 
the humble service in his little village 
church as of much greater weight than all 
scientific discoveries. 

45 



On one occasion a friend found Michael 
Faraday in tears ; with his head bent over 
an open Bible. "I fear you are feeling 
worse," he said. "No," answered Faraday, 
"it is not that; but why, oh, why will not 
men believe the blessed truths here revealed 
to them?" An humble and reverent study 
of the laws which God has impressed upon 
the universe He has made. 
"The pale-featured sage's trembling hand 
Strong as a host of armed deities, 
Such as the blind Ionian fabled erst:" 

And yet of those sages, from Capernicus 
to Faraday, and down to the most eminent 
of our living students of science, the fore- 
most have not only had faith in God's 
Book, but also believed in one of the great- 
est of all great doctrines, viz; the doctrine 
of the atonement, or divinity of our Sav- 
iour. 

4 6 



The strong take from the weak and 
perish into nothing — this is all that is 
offered us by those who reject and revile 
the Bible. Such have exceeding deep 
ignorance, exceeding ill manners, exceed- 
ing bad taste, and exceeding great folly. 

Some time ago an article appeared in 
the Atlantic Monthly. It is sound to the 
core. I take pleasure in presenting it: 
"If there be any axiom which everyone has 
accepted without question, it is that, in all 
study of English literature, the ultimate 
standard of English prose style is set by 
the King James version of the Bible. If 
one were to figure the whole range of 
English prose in the form of an arch, he 
would put the Bible as the key-stone; and 
he would put it there not only because it is 
the highest point and culmination of prose 
writing, but also because it binds the whole 

47 



structure together/' "For examples of 
limpid, convincing narrative, we go to 
Genesis, to the story of Ruth, to the quiet 
narratives of the Gospels ; for the mingled 
argument and explanation and exhortation 
in which lies the highest power of the other 
side of literature, we go to the prophets, 
and still more to the epistles of the New 
Testament ; and for the glow of vehemence 
and feeling which burns away the limits 
between poetry and prose, and makes prose 
style at its highest pitch, able to stand beside 
the stirring vibrations of verse, we go to 
the Psalms or the book of Job, or the 
prophesies of Isaiah, or to the triumphant 
declaration of immortality in the epistle 
to the Corinthians/' "We fold our hands 
in the comfortable feeling that here, at any 
rate, one question of English literature is 

settled: the standard English prose style 

4 8 



is the standard of the authorized version 
of the Bible, and that style is so clear and 
so convincing that nothing more is to be 
accounted for." 

"Cling to the Bible, tho' all else be taken; 

Lose not its promises precious and sure ; 
Souls that are sleeping its echoes awaken, 

Drink from the fountain, so peaceful, so 
pure. 

"Cling to the Bible, this jewel, this treasure, 
Brings to us honor and saves fallen man ; 

Pearl whose great value no mortal can 
measure, 
Seek and secure it, O soul, while you can. 

Lamp for the feet that in by-ways have 
wandered, 
Guide for the youth that would otherwise 
fall; 
Hope for the sinner whose best days are 
squandered, 
Staff for the aged, and best book of all." 

49 



My friends, I ask you to throw aside 
every false theory of our life, establish a 
good, Christian character, having our mas- 
ter, your only model and guide, as He is pre- 
sented in the Bible. Let man go abroad 
with just, biblical, Christian principles, and 
what is he ? A mighty power, an exhaust- 
less fountain in a vast desert, a glorious 
sun-shining, ever dispelling every vestige of 
darkness. There is love animating his 
heart, sympathy breathing in every tone. 
Beneath his smiles lurk no degrading pas- 
sions. Within his breast there slumbers 
no guile. A good man is abroad, the com- 
munity in which he lives knows it and cer- 
tainly feels it. 

But you must heartily believe and be 

convinced of Divine Truth as exhibited in 

God's Holy Word. Allow me to quote Dr. 

Luther on this point : He says, "thou must 

50 



be certain that it is the word of God as thou 
art certain that thou livest and even more 
certain, for on this alone must thy con- 
science rest. And even if all men came, 
aye, even the angels and all the world, 
and determined something, if thou canst 
not form nor conclude the decision, thou 
art lost. For thou must not place thy decis- 
ion on the Pope, or any other, thou must 
thyself be so skillful that thou canst say, 
God says this, not that ; this is right, that is 
wrong ; else it is not possible to endure. 
Dost thou stand upon Pope or Concilia? 
Then the devil may knock a hole in thee 
and insinuate, 'how if it were false, how 
if they erred?' Thou then art laid low at 
once. Therefore thou must bring con- 
science into play, that thou must boldly and 
defiantly say, that is God's word, on that 
will I risk body and life, and a hundred 
51 



thousand necks if I had them. Therefore 
no one shall turn me from the word which 
God teaches me, and that I must know as 
certainly as that two and three make five, 
that an ell is longer than a half. That is 
certain, and though all the world speak to 
the contrary still I know that it is not 
otherwise. Who decides me then? No 
man, but only the truth which is so perfectly 
clear that nobody can deny it." So much 
Dr. Luther. 

Character is the sustaining glory of 
individual greatness, the Doric and splendid 
column in the majestic structure of a true 
and dignified manhood. To earth belongs 
his corruptible body, but to another and 
more enlarged sphere his soul stamped with 
divinity. It is not the false theory of 
Epicureanism, Asceticism or Pantheism, 
that I advocate, but the universal diligence 
52 



of a righteous Dr. Martin Luther, a John- 
athan Edwards, a Bishop Butler, a Bunyan, 
a benevolent Howard, an enterprising Ful- 
ton and a Morse. But for such as they, 
many a heart would be cold as death, many 
a mortal languishing in distress. "Man is 
his own star, and that soul that can honestly 
believe is the only perfect man." 

Honesty to me is like an anchor, not for 
calm days only, but for storms. The 
anchor may be decked with flowers at times, 
and in a harbor may rest at the bow and 
silently express its idea of usefulness. But 
when the vessel is out on its path, and there 
is a night of storm and darkness, not a 
single star appearing, then it is that the old 
mass of iron seems to glory in its rugged- 
ness, and leaving its ideal festoons upon 
the deck, in the gloomy midnight, it drops 
into the deep and grasps the solid earth with 
its gigantic arms. 

53 



Whilst the church performs her labor on 
earth, the roaring gulf of human passion 
and hatred will eventually be calmed by the 
voice of peace. Activity and exertion are 
the crystal waters that turn the moral mach- 
inery of the universe. "Go ye into all the 
world, and preach my gospel," was a divine 
injunction. 

But Heaven's temple on earth must be 
built by man that the fire of benevolence 
may burn on the altars of the human heart 
more vividly, and that faith in our Master, 
with her brightest blessing, might turn all 
the nations of the earth. A constant light 
is beaming into the souls of Bible-Christ- 
ians who have been born into the true King- 
dom, into the true light of our Saviour. 
When we come into that light, there is no 
error, we even understand our own life 
more clearly. Truly, all is light ; within that 

54 



heavenly light, there is peace, life and all 
things that man craves in his spiritual 
nature. It seems to me, however, that there 
was never before such an appreciation of 
the goodness and love of our Heavenly 
Father, I mean to the every day problem of 
our life. I am inclined to be optimistic in 
my views, however. Like Emerson, I can 
see "the beauty of the good/' Indeed, to 
me, "there are more birds singing, more 
flowers blooming, more spring every- 
where," simply and because, it is our 
Father's love toward his children. "He 
doeth all things well." 

In the solemn ecstacy of a Kepler we may 
exclaim : 

"Oh ! God ! I read Thy Thoughts after 
Thee !" 



55 



K Life believe, is not a dream, 

So dark as sages say; 
Oft a little morning rain 

Foretells a pleasant day. 11 

— Charlotte Bronte. 



( <£>* rman ) 

Pastor C. N. Conrad, of Rochester, N. Y., has 
gathered from approved Lutheran sources, a col- 
lection of prayers for personal and household use 
and issued them in this little volume. It contains 
prayers for the morning and the evening of all the 
days of the week, for the festivals of the church 
year, and circumstances of the Christian life. The 
old and approved prayers of the devout men of 
our church, which have been hallowed by long, 
continued and general use, have been freely taken 

for this purpose But the prayers are 

admirable, they are simple, devout, full of the 
unction of the Holy Ghost, and well adapted to be 
of much service in personal use. "Gespraeche 
mit Gott," will be a blessing wherever used with 
an earnest and prayerful disposition. 

(Rev. B. M. Schmucker, D. D., Lutheran.) 



The Gillies press 
rochester, n. y. 



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